Dictionary Definitions Are Lowkey Racist?

I can practically see a right-wing YouTuber using that title to ragebait their subscribers. It doesn’t matter which one - they’re all making the same two or three jokes every day forever. But hear me out, okay? Linguistics is one of the few things I’m actually knowledgeable about and unlearning racism is a complicated and tireless endeavor.

The dictionary attempts to capture the common usage of a lexicon at a certain point in time. Note that every word of that sentence was carefully chosen. English is a living language whose words are regularly used by billions of people all over the world. A definition of a few lines can approximate usage, but the totality of usage includes every spoken utterance and every written word. Only foolish lexicographers indeed would claim to print a comprehensive dictionary.

“Slang” is one of the condescending words we use to demean non-standard English. A few slang terms might make it into the dictionary each year, assuming enough white millennials tweet them, but even then you can count on prescriptivist bastards leaping forward to bemoan the decline of the English language. For the most part minorities are simply expected to alter the way they speak in front of privileged people. That’s a colonizer-ass attitude and it must be eliminated. Slang is common usage to the communities that coin it.

(Dear Reader: if you are a fellow white person, I invite you to join me for a quick sidebar. As you unlearn linguistic prescriptivism PLEASE do not attempt to mirror anyone's non-standard English usage. Speak in whatever manner comes naturally to you and allow others to do the same. Excellent! Carry on.)

My blood boils when someone tries to justify their exclusionary political stance by pointing to the dictionary of all things. I’m not interested in what Mirriam-Webster says a woman is, for example, or the historical uses of the pronoun they. First, consider who it is that compiles these books. Second, a dictionary is outdated by the time its ink has dried. How are you going to base your beliefs on a single reference to reality rather than reality itself and then claim to the a champion of rationality? Eat my ass.